How To Play Minecraft

Welcome to the Minecraft Quickstart Guide. Minecraft is a game devoid of quests and guided adventures. The world of Minecraft exists for you to build it and transform it into anything and everything imaginable. It operates on a 20 minute day/night cycle, with 10 minutes of daytime, 1.5 minutes at sunset and sunrise, and 7 minutes of nighttime. During nighttime, the world is covered in darkness, allowing hostile mobs to spawn on the surface.

Upon entering a new world, the two most important things to do are crafting tools and building a shelter, all before the first night-cycle hits. Finding trees and harvesting wood are the first steps towards making tools.

Once you have found a couple trees, use your fist to punch them and collect the wood that drops. To harvest resources, hold down the left mouse button until the cracks in the block cause it to break. Once the block breaks, you can walk near it to automatically place the item in your inventory. Keep punching trees until you have gathered 10 pieces of wood. IMPORTANT: On a multiplayer server, you will not be able to harvest/mine blocks in a 33x33 block radius of the spawning point.

Now that you finished gathering wood, start looking for a place to build your night-one shelter. Keep in mind that your night-one shelter should be a simple covering designed to keep monsters out. High up areas on top of mountains are usually a good pace to build, but anywhere will do.

Once you have identified a suitable location for your night-one shelter, it’s time to convert your wood into wooden planks. Press ‘E’ to open your inventory, where you should notice the 2x2 crafting grid to the right of your character. When you place wood into the crafting squares, each piece of wood can be turned into 4 wooden planks. Use the wood blocks you gathered to create 24 wooden planks.

Now that you have wooden planks, you can build your first crafting table. Crafting tables are the workbenches by which you will build most tools and items in Minecraft, so be sure to place it in an accessible location.

Once your crafting table is placed, you can open it (right-click it) to reveal a 3x3 crafting grid, similar to the one in your inventory. Sticks are required to build tools, so place two wooden planks in the crafting grid, one on top of the other. Use 6 of your wooden planks to create 12 sticks.

With wooden planks and sticks in your inventory, you are ready to build your first set of wooden tools with your crafting table. The first tools you should create are a pickaxe, an axe, a shovel and a sword.

Once you have crafted your tools, you can begin building your first structure. The purpose of your night-one shelter is simply to protect you from monsters that spawn during the night. Ideally you have already identified your desired location by placing your crafting table, but if you find you need to move your crafting table you can do so by punching it with your fist to pick it up.

Using your wood shovel will be the quickest way to gather dirt for quick walls, however if you have stone available you can use your wood pickaxe to gather it for a more durable barrier. Your shelter doesn't need to be big, as long as it covers you on all sides until morning.

The last and final step to a safe and sound first night, is finding cobblestone for a furnace. If you can’t find any visible stone, use your wood shovel to dig through a few layers of dirt or grass until you start to see some. Once you find stone, use your wood pickaxe to gather 20 cobblestone blocks.

After gathering enough cobblestone, you are ready to safely lock yourself away for night one. Return to your crafting table with your cobblestone blocks to start building your furnace. To craft the furnace, place one block of cobblestone in each of the outer crafting squares, leaving only the center-middle square empty. Place the furnace in a convenient location near your crafting table.

Now that you have a furnace, you can craft torches for a light source at night. Open the furnace, and place a wooden plank in the bottom square and a few wood blocks in the top square to make charcoal. Your first piece of charcoal can be used to keep the furnace lit while you continue to convert wood blocks into charcoal. Keep converting wooden blocks into charcoal until you have 5 pieces of charcoal.

With your remaining sticks and newly converted charcoal, you can now make torches. Open your inventory crafting space or the crafting table and stack charcoal on top of sticks to make torches. One stick and one piece of charcoal will make 4 torches. After making torches, you can place them inside your shelter to give yourself an inside light source.

Now that the basics are complete, you are ready to begin exploring or building magnificent structures. Your night-one shelter is finished, and you should have a set of wooden tools, some torches, a furnace and a crafting table. You can spend your first night crafting a new set of stone tools, digging deep beneath your shelter, or exploring the darkness outside. Just be sure to watch out for the creepers!